Announcements

The Colorado Department of Labor opens its  2017 Workers' Compensation Conference  on Monday in scenic Colorado Springs. It is an ambitious three-day agenda, and has attracted over 175 attendees from across Colorado and various other states, including 12 from Florida. The quality of the programming is illustrated in the variety of attendees. And there are exhibitors and speakers, all told there will be over 300 people in attendance.  A big draw Monday afternoon will be the Regulator Roundtable. For 75 minutes, the Director of the Colorado Division of Workers' Compensation will moderate a discussion of what is topical in American workers' compensation. The topics are not published in the conference materials. The Agenda merely promises "agency leaders from three states to a panel discussion focused on the challenges, concerns and issues facing jurisdictions across the nation." And, that is fairly general. What are the issues and concerns facing workers' compens

The figures are in for Florida workers' compensation litigation filings for 3/4 of the fiscal year, through March 31, 2017. The PFB filings were up notably in January (14%) over the same month last year. February was statistically unchanged from a year prior. March figures returned to the trend of increase. The average of monthly changes has been approximately 3%.  The  OJCC  continues to project an annualized increase in the range of 6-7%.